Continuous Testing: The Hows And The Whys
Continuous Testing is a software testing process at all stages of the development cycle. Agile teams are constantly demanded to reduce release time and increase their outcome without tampering with quality assurance.
Enterprises today understand what it means when they release software worldwide. Their products are no longer a supporting tool that also happens to uplift the business objectives. Softwares are a significant source of innovation and are invading all areas of operation in a business, which makes it necessary for companies to stop and sense the impact it has and catch up with the customer expectation end of things. With rapidly changing expectations, the application development and delivery time have become increasingly short.
As a result of such trends and developments, teams are becoming more agile and receptive to feedback with shorter cycle times for the deployment of software updates. However, this also puts much pressure on Ops and QA teams to create more reliable software without tampering with delivery speed, quality demands and security pain points.
In such scenarios, enterprises move their software delivery pipelines to some form of continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) process and adopt continuous Testing.
Adopting Continuous Testing
There is no confusion that enterprises’ primary objective is to ensure quality while maintaining speed, and Continuous Testing enables that process. Continuous Testing decides whether your code development is fast, seamless, and automated. Here are some benefits of adopting Continuous Testing:
a) It helps in minimising application-bound risks
A general rule of thumb in Testing is that there is always room for errors to be made whenever it goes under a code change. If completed, they could lead to severe repercussions. Repairing these errors could then cost the business a significant sum of money.
One of the key benefits of continuous Testing is faster turnaround time. But enterprises must maintain a risk-free output. Adopting continuous Testing means detecting errors way ahead in the development cycle. This can reduce the number of risks the application will host once after its release. Continuous Testing ensures faster turnaround while delivering a risk-free output.
b) It helps in bringing consistency
Continuous Testing can be carried out effectively with test automation while ensuring process consistency. Continuous integration makes it easier for businesses to maintain a smooth flow between all systems and subsystems. This aids in establishing a robust setup and maintaining the necessary configuration for Testing of a similar nature.
c) It enables faster releases
To support more frequent and quicker releases, continuous Testing and continuous integration are developed. The code is rigorously and frequently tested when automated tests allow the development teams to provide reliable results even at speed. Teams can quickly and consistently deploy newer code thanks to continuous Testing.
d) It helps in improving Test Coverage
How do you decide on what amount of test coverage your code needs? Continuous Testing addresses this from the very beginning of the development process. Continuous Testing ensures that all features are tested, and potential weaknesses are identified and resolved. Achieving maximum test coverage is a green flag for testers and the IT team.
e) It enables more transparency
Continuous Testing as a process is carried out right from the start, making it more visible for everyone involved. This visibility also adds value to the whole software/application development process. In addition, the continuous testing process unlocks detailed reporting across the dashboard. As a result, the team maintains an upper hand on everything happening at every step of the development process.
Achieving True Agility With Continuous Testing
Millions of enterprises across the globe follow the agile methodology. But rarely do you find enterprises asking the right questions like, “How to integrate Continuous testing / Continuous integration into the cycle thoroughly?”, “Is it productive and beneficial for the enterprise?”, “Are resources available to define and design a sought Continuous Testing process?
The industry understands the importance of Continuous Testing well enough to know it will take up many testers’ time in the future. This is mainly why the global continuous testing market is expected to grow from $1.46 Billion in 2020 to $4.58 Billion in 2028. This is a total increase of 15.2% in CAGR.
Achieving true agility with Continuous Testing is a process that takes time to establish and start paying off. However, it is a process that needs to be started somewhere.